


i have never held a hand so soft

by preshire



Series: misadventures of nick grimshaw and harry styles [3]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Blindness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 21:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preshire/pseuds/preshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nick grimshaw is blind. harry styles helps him. au! where harry isn't at all famous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i have never held a hand so soft

**Author's Note:**

> i actually have zero idea where this came from. i'm addicted to gryles. also, written with very little punctuation.
> 
> disclaimer: total au! none of this happened

**i**

nick grimshaw is blind.

he's been blind since birth-- it's not a big deal anymore. his mum used to tell him when he was a sad and clumsy little kid that it was god's way of testing him. he wasn't so sure about that now, as a still sad and still clumsy young man, but there wasn't anything to be done about it so he might as well make the best of it.

when he was only 18 he made the decision to try and join the workforce instead of continuing his education. it was hard, and he needed to call in a lot of favours, but he finally got a dream job for a blind man: a radio gig. he had a cozy little spot on sunday nights that no one listened to, but they were very accommodating at radio 1 to his disability. the woman who brought him coffee in the beginning of his slot even watches his dog, lex while he talks.

people like him. they like him for conquering the adversity like his mum told him he was supposed to. his producer would read him emails that people would send to him; telling him that he was an inspiration. nick didn't think that he was, and didn't imagine himself to be the public face of disability, but the words were nice.

he's sure that not everyone sent him nice things, but he didn't have to read them, did he?

over his years at radio 1, he slowly became a more and more prominent dj. he might not be able to see, but his hearing was impeccable. his sunday slot eventually came to be a weeknights one, and he was happy. he was invited to present awards, with a voice in his ear whispering the winner so he didn't have to read it off a page. he made many friends; and he was able to be a regular 20 year old living in london as long as his friends helped him out a bit. he loved them all.

it was a bit sad that he'd never be able to see them. but he was happy enough in his cozy corner of the radio.

**ii**

he's at a bbc meeting and he's sitting at the table when someone scrapes a chair up beside him. nick makes a bit of room for the new arrival, and smiles where he guesses the face of the person would be.

"hello," a voice says. nick likes his voice; it's dark and raspy and nick likes the way it sounds in his ears. he's a radio host and a dj and it's sort of his job to collect sounds and noises that appeal to him.

"hello," nick extends his hand, because he wants whoever this is to be his friend and to let him record his voice and show it to the nation. "i'm nick grimshaw."

"'m harry styles." the hand takes his, and they’re are soft but firm as he shakes. the hand is gone within a few seconds, though, before harry styles is being shushed as the meeting begins.

his boss introduces harry as his new assistant.

**iii**

harry meets him every night where the car service drops him off with lex in front of the studio. even though he's lived 27 years without someone waiting on him, he can't say he minds it much. harry's nice and he's funny in a slow and deliberate sort of way. his voice envelops nick in velvet and it’s rich like cocoa but smooth like honey.

harry’s trained and certified to be helping people with disabilities. he tells him that he wanted to work more with kids with special needs, and that this was his first real job. harry has curly hair and soft skin and a strong jawline and little dips in his cheeks when he smiles. he lets nick feel him, lets him touch his thick eyelashes and feel his ribs through his shirt. harry tells him that he has four nipples, which intrigues nick but he doesn't let him feel.

he makes photocopies of things for him. fetches him things. makes him tea. he always brushes a hand down nick's arm before speaking so he knows that he's there. he talks to nick with respect, but not with the pity or the sympathy that he usually encounters. he chats with him as he writes notes and fills out paperwork, and he uses language descriptive enough that nick doesn't need to have his eyesight to be able to see.

harry comes in with a butterfly tattoo one day, and nick doesn't stop snickering at him for the entire night. he slaps nick's hand after he pokes the bandaged skin, hard, and mews sadly. nick's never heard anyone sound more like a cat in his life. when he informs harry so, the boy angrily threatens to throw him out the window of the studio's offices.

nick apologizes, and he touches the boy’s face to make sure he's smiling.

**iv**

nick gets a promotion. he's to host the radio 1 breakfast show. harry won't stop yelling in his ear about how proud he is.

the friday before he starts in september, nick has an interview for the breakfast show. they keep bringing everything back to his disability, no matter what the question is. nick's starting to get a bit annoyed, and he can hear harry murmuring in the ears of the crew to move it along.

he subtly slips in that he's gay, and he can feel harry's eyes boring into him even if he can't see them.

the interview's finished and harry helps nick collect his discarded sweater, and guides him out of the room with a firm hand on his elbow. when harry's successfully herded him into a cab he's just flagged down, he finally brings it up.

"so… you're gay?" harry asks. harry sounds nervous. nick doesn't like it when harry's nervous. his voice gets all shaky and he sounds likely to throw up.

"yep," nick replies. he doesn't leave any room for further discussion. he's always kept his sexuality in the dark; with one foot in the closet is how he's always functioned. he'd been saved in high school from his homosexuality by his blindness. people had been so absorbed by his lack of vision that they were the blind ones. he wasn't nick grimshaw, teenage boy, gay. he was nick grimshaw: blind. it was a wall that no one bothered to look behind. he'd heard the horror stories, of course. of kids who'd been bullied so harshly for being gay. being called faggots and homos and lesbos and dykes and pussies and a plethora of other names that made his skin crawl. and though he had been slightly terrified at the thought of being open with it all, he didn't feel like it was worth hiding.

harry rustles around on the seat beside him, and nick starts to feel queasy as well. he's probably made harry uncomfortable. harry's going to quit.

it's a friday, so when the cab drops nick off at his flat, he won't see harry for another two days. if he doesn't quit and leave the country, first. nick is sad.

**v**

harry's there to meet him at the car bright and early monday morning.

**vi**

the breakfast show is a dream come true. after the first week, his friends opt to take him out for drinks in a celebratory "you did it" binge drinking contest. he's quick to invite harry, who seems audibly shocked that nick goes out on friday nights like a normal lad. after sputtering for a moment, he agrees with as much dignity he can muster.

the music is heavy and it feels like the closest thing to love he's ever experienced. aimee sits him down at a table, and they all crowd around him. nick holds his drink in the air and they tap their drinks to his and throw back. harry pulls him to where there's people dancing, and he places his hands on the boys skinny hips and rests his forehead on harry's curls. they move to the music, bodies twisting and complimenting each other and nick twists his head involuntarily when harry wraps his arms around nick's neck and kisses the boys wrist.

harry moves so his lips are touching nick's ear, and he whispers something that nick can't quite make out.

"sorry?" nick yells over the ruckus surrounding them.

harry's lips move more firmly against him. this time, he speaks louder. "i'm going to need to quit my job."

nick jerks back, body no longer dancing. "what?"

"i need to quit my job," harry's breath smells like midori sour's. "because i really want to kiss you right now."

"oh." nick's still, but a smile makes its way onto his face. "okay."

"okay." harry repeats, and kisses him.

harry's lips are just as soft and warm as he thought they would be.

**vii**

harry invites himself back to nick's flat. lex is begging for a walk, so he drunkenly takes her around the corner as nick rids himself of his clubbing clothes.

when harry returns, nick's ready in the bedroom. he's had sex before; many times before. he's a very convincing non-blind man when he wants to pull someone. he just lets them take control, without being submissive.

harry crawls onto the bed, stripping as he comes over. his skin is burning hot even though the air is chilly outside. harry guides nick's hands where they need to go, and he's patient and very, very enthusiastic.

**viii**

harry spends two more weeks on the breakfast show. it's a bit weird for nick to have an assistant he's also fucking. harry gets a job helping children with special needs at a primary school. he's got outstanding references on his resume.

when harry gets the job, he comes over to nick's with the news and a bottle of pinot noire. they get drunk on wine. harry runs a bath for them, with lots of bubbles, and they feed each other a bowl of ice cream with one spoon. nick keeps touching harry with his feet under the water, until harry puts the bowl on the floor beside them and sits down with some difficulty on nick's cock. by the end of it, the bathwater is cold and half of it is covering nick’s floor.

**ix**

harry buys nick a pendant. they've been dating for months, but neither are quite sure what they're supposed to do from there. so harry takes the first step, because he's been guiding nick through everything anyways.

he and harry sit down one night, and a blanket over their laps and the television on a show with descriptive video. nick's not paying much attention, though. he's too busy feeling his boyfriend's face.

touching faces is something that has always fascinated nick. just because he was blind, didn't mean he couldn't know what people looked like. he could feel the bone structure and the skin texture and the thickness and complexities of eyebrows and the spots on chins, cracked lips and the places where the skin bunches up or puffs out.

harry's face was particularly thrilling to him. he had all the features that painted a spectacular picture in nick's head. and while he had no concept of some things, like the greenness of his eyes, the rosiness in his lips, and the pigment of his skin, what he could fill in was pretty attractive to him.

harry's quiet, and nick's hands are tracing his face. the tips of his fingers are rough and calloused from a lifetime of touch. he can hear harry's soft breathing, and he could slip a hand down and rest it on his chest to feel his ribcage rising and falling with each inhalation of oxygen stolen from the air.

his hands fall to do just so, following the downy hairs on his neck and the faint outlines of veins. nick's hands find a chain wrapped around his neck, and he strokes his thumbs down the metal until he reaches the bottom of it. nick loves harry's necklaces. he likes how they sound when they hit his collarbones, and likes when they're loose and falling when harry's just been thrown out on his back. and the little charms and pendants are always things he can recognize; a heart, a paper airplane, a cross.

this one, he doesn't recognize. it's like a dogtag, but feels smaller. and on the back, nick can feel braille. he pauses, and harry's breath stops like this is what he's been waiting for, and been so quiet for.

"what's this?" nick asks, but doesn't read the inscription yet.

"i bought it for you." harry purrs. nick smiles as his boyfriend pulls away a bit to pull the necklace off his neck and put it on nick's. "read it."

nick clutches the chain in his hand, but he leans forward to press his lips against harry's. he will never ever ever get used to kissing harry. there's something kissing _this specific boy_ that is infinitely better than kissing any other boy on the planet. he wants to kiss this boy. wants to wake up with him in his bed, wants to make them coffee as harry fries eggs. wants to drop something and crack their heads off each other as they both reach down to get it. wants to dedicate love songs on the radio to him, wants to talk the ear off of complete strangers about how cute harry is. wants to suck him off and fuck him and get fucked by him and do whatever he can to meet harry's sexual needs. wants to go out to dinner with him and end his day in bed with him and then start it all over again the next morning.

he moves his hands to the braille inscription, and as soon as he realizes what it says, he knows he's never going to take off this necklace for as long as he lives.

"i love you too, harry." and he can't stop smiling.

**x**

nick gets a new assistant. at harry's insistence, she's a girl.

 


End file.
